Avatar Contest entries
by et2brute
Summary: Entries for the Avatar Contest community on Livejournal, sorted by weekly theme and the order I wrote them in.
1. week 6: history

**Two Lifetimes  
**thrones

-

Once, there is a time when Aang is twelve instead of a hundred and twelve - before history has sealed itself away from him; for a instant where he opens his eyes and everyone is dead. Kuzon is beside him, Kuzon leaning in and pressing words against his ear.

"Why not?" he is saying, and Aang can practically feel the fire, a raw heat that moves between them and suddenly explodes in his chest. "We didn't get caught last time - and anyway, those stuffy old monks don't like it one bit, and they've been trying to keep us apart."

Aang rocks back on his heels, and shakes his head through his smile. "You're a bad influence."

"_I'm_ a bad influence? Who was it that -"

The subreality falls around them and Aang wakes up a hundred years later, thrashing and throwing his arms over his face.

To him, it was months ago; to the world, it was a century. "_What_?"

"Just walking," Zuko says quietly though the open door, turning his head. "Can't sleep." He's nervous even now - everything he does, it seems, is an implication. "Were you - are you upset about something?"

"Just a dream," he says shortly; and then: "Remember when I thought we could be friends?"

Zuko looks up, and something rises in his eyes.

"Well, we can't."

It falls like a stone.

"Ah." He doesn't see the point in staying; he knew it would take time. "See you in the morning."

He leaves, and Aang doesn't feel any better for it - _Firebenders_, he thinks spitefully. It doesn't matter the incarnation; they stay with him. Sozin, when he was Roku; Kuzon, a hundred years ago. And now -

_No,_ he thinks firmly, and refuses to sleep.


	2. week 7: joy

**Clarity  
**thrones

-

Sun on his face, and a warm breeze that ruffles his clothing, faintly – pulls at the edges of his lashes, the long whip of hair that is settled under his head.

An unwakefulness – half in, half out, but none of the foggy frustration, the struggle to the surface.

He knows who the voice belongs to; it has filtered through him for over an hour, and yet has not stirred him.

With his eyes closed, Zuko sees:

(it is an impression of things, a vague sense of place and time based on sound and sense)

The green trees, the red rocks, the great white sky. A bubbling cloud of condensed energy, careful, curious, confused – _near._

He is gradually coming around, but his mind has yet to catch up with the calm that fills his spirit – that his destiny is just beside him, he could reach out and touch it, could purify the scars in his soul so cleanly that nothing would remain but transience, transcendance: even his anger would fall away, dead leaves, compost; even his own past could be redeemed.

Zuko opens his eyes and the Avatar lets the words hang, suspended; and then his rage washes ragged through body and manifests itself, half-formed fire.

Aang, birdlike, flits away; what he leaves is a conversation they aren't ready for and a sense of unity that is many battles premature: the last cloudy dregs of, _I could feel this way for the rest of my life_.

-

Fate is a guide, if not a constant; we arrive at our crossroads, and it nudges – we move wrong, we meet with resistance; right, and all is at peace within us.

It will be hard, but his soul is light.

-

Many battles later, it has nothing to do with trust; Aang feels it, too.


	3. week 8: cut

**Untitled, or The Story That Sokka Was Never Given  
**thrones

-

Because Sokka is not a bender of any sort, and he's surrounded by masters when he isn't even god of his own calling:

Imagine a broad, empty room so pale that you can't see the edges of it. The walls are filmy, foggy, opaque; the floor is clear, thin glass so that when you look down past your feet, the link between realities is seamless. This is the part that is all in your head, but can't be shaken – cobwebs, but spun from a kind of iron that you can't brush away, a self-imposed entrapment that you drown in.

Worse for the small, terrible fact that your closest friends don't even notice this, your bone-deep isolation.

-

Aang loses a step but not a beat, because where the ground has fallen away he bends it back, invisible, and keeps pace. Second nature, this magic child; all the world at his palms, the soles of his shoes, the tips of his fingers and the breath in his chest. He spins it, whorls it, carries it as such an intrinsic part of his body that to separate the two would be no different than cutting off his hands, or out his eyes.

Like his tattoos, it flows over his body, an envelope of self-definition.

Sokka doesn't even have that.

-

His baby sister with her arms around him, even though it's been years since their mother died. "I can't keep singing you to sleep forever, you know," she says idly even though her eyes are wet. She strings the tears off his cheeks, clumsily because she is young and has never even heard of things like blood-bending, and then makes them burst – small anti-fireworks that glitter in the dim starlight fading in through the window, and Sokka is the older brother who can't handle his mother and father_both_ gone, while Katara has carefully gathered up the reins and keeps things running smoothly.

The hollow inside of her is filled with water, calming and cool and sweet, and even when she cries it is never the rage that Sokka can't escape; rather, a light rain that hardly dusts the floor.

Sokka doesn't have anything inside of him except the usual bits of gut and bone and hot despair, and these aren't things you can hold on to.

-

Toph shoves him without her hands, without even her earth. Her nature so forthright that her words follow suit, and when she says things like 'three benders plus Sokka', she's being sincere; even if it isn't meant harshly, even if she's teasing him, it's true.

It was her _own_ choice to leave her parents behind, and yet she is steady; solid, unmovable, the eternal constant. Whatever metal lives within her, she is a part of it, and whole.

-

The last straw comes with this imagined scenario, because Sokka's mind is a loose cluster at best, though usually something like an open bag of marbles dropped on a hard, smooth surface with the colored spheres flinging themselves inexorably toward all corners of existence.

So, in his mind, aside from the haze that wraps around him and the walls too far off to scale or see through, and the glass floor that makes him realize with startled certainty that _he_ is the one beneath _their_ feet – in his mind, they are taking a breather from training and feel like blowing off steam because they still don't get along, and it's really four-on-four, except Aang is the Avatar, so they try to even things out; it will be two – on – three.

Even his own sister doesn't pick him for Team Katara, and it ends up being Zuko and Toph versus the water benders with Sokka as the referee.

They'll drop the idea of balance because this is modified version where any method of bending to get the ball into the goals is acceptable, as long as Aang promises to restrict himself to air, because they are all masters; and Sokka isn't any help to either team.

He shakes his head to clear it, but it's bone-deep: all he feels beneath his ribs is uselessness.

-

His heart down and entangled with his intestines in a sick, hopeless dread, he recalls:

Battle after battle, and Mai and Ty Lee without fire, and girls besides; and he can't handle either of them – not even alone, and he thinks, _What kind of warrior am I_, and leaves it at that because, at this point, he doesn't even want to know.

Really, what he doesn't want to know most of all is _What am I even doing here_, because the worst thing to carry with you is the realization that you aren't needed at all.

_Really_, his reflection says to him in the morning when he drags himself out of bed and into the bathroom, _Yue is dead and Suki as good as. How can you save the world if you can't even save your girlfriends_, and he fights the urge to slam his fist against the silvered glass.

-

The last thing he can do – strategy, tactical planning, brilliant possibilities that he can pull off by the skin of his teeth – it's all irrelevant anyway, because Zuko is a prince, and knows better than anyone how to fight the Fire Nation. He was raised for the war meetings, and has more than simmering, back-burner talent – was born and bred for this sort of thing.

-

He keeps getting pushed further and further out of the limelight, nearer to the edge of the vast force of nature that is Aang and his destiny, and vehicle that is history only has room for those who would help shape it.

The only thing Sokka has left to do is look for a place to get off.


	4. week 9: once

**Follow Him Back  
**thrones

-

"I don't know," he whispers, but his voice never breaks. "It seems like it would, after awhile. And I can't say that there isn't a kind of... _exhaustion_, way down in my – spirit The idea of sleeping and... not waking up again, necessarily, I mean. I'm not – _afraid_ of it." Here he smiles in this odd way, like he shouldn't find something appealing, but does; and then he raises his eyes and there's a bone-deep sorrow around the soft, thousand-year-old laughter soaked into them, smoothing the edges of his voice.

The second question he's asked is a little worse, in that it steals whatever vague amusement he managed to squeeze out of the first one.

After a few minutes and several false starts, he finally says soberly, "No. I don't think – at least, not in the way that I do. I think that you live your life, and even if – if some part of you is _recycled_, it – it isn't _you_. There's something in me that still has _memories_, you know? Without those, you aren't anyone. You can't be." He doesn't seem at all happy about this. There's a tension at his brow and around the corners of his mouth, and he continues uneasily, "I think that the idea of the Avatar is kind of like a – a constant, you know? A pillar. And everyone else lives with it, but only once." He bites his lower lip now, and then runs his tongue over it, and then studies his hands because what he's saying is that people have souls, but they are just as disposable as the rest of the body – just as transmutable as blood, for example, when it becomes earth; when bodies decay and gardens breathe themselves to life with it.

The third question is the one that his face finally falls with, and his eyes dull; he's tired, and sad, and while his hands are still and he isn't burning with the loneliness of this last truth, it is still deeply seeded within his heart: this selfish knowledge that no one can ever follow him back unchanged.

"No," he says sullenly, and this is when the conversation ends. We won't."

-

Prince Zuko dipped his feet into the stream, squinting down at the fish through the clear current. They were near to the surface, snapping up tiny, early-morning bugs, and blended easily with the silver dapples of sunlight on the water.

He had known it would take time, but he figured that breakfast wouldn't be a terrible start – as long as they didn't think he was trying to poison them. He sighed, raking his hand back through his hair; really, he couldn't win anybody over who didn't want to be won, and it was frustrating. His eyes fell out of focus as he considered the best way to fry a fish out of the water, and for a moment he caught his wobbly reflection blinking owlishly back at him. He looked nothing like a prince now, of course – he knew that, but seeing it so blatantly curdled some old vestiges of pride that still lined his stomach, and he felt as though he was going to be sick.

Not that he had anything against peasants, but to think – he'd been a prince. Next in line for the throne of the Fire Nation. He would have been king.

His hands shot into the water and drew up two squirming bits of silver, glittering mercurial in the sunlight.

_Oh well_, he thought, and smiled a little easier as he dropped them in the old bucket he'd brought along. _There's always the next life._

"Zuko?"

His head jerked up, heart in his throat, until he saw that Aang was coming toward him, alone and shirtless and very probably still asleep – as far as the rest of his mental faculties were concerned.

"Hello," he answered, slightly awkward. He still had to quell the sudden urge to chase Aang down on sight – strange, how easy he was around his former pursuer, how relaxed in the presence of his would-be captor – and now he mostly just had to force his eyes to Aang's face; failing that, he pried them away altogether. He almost wanted to shout at the kid – reprimand him for his trusting nature, it would get him killed; it already could have.

"Fishing?" He took a seat beside Zuko, close, and slid his feet into the water as well. He sat looking sleepily at his toes, and those of his firebender's.

"Yeah," was the soft reply. Two more hit the bucket with a wet _thwap_.

"That's nice of you," he yawned, blinking lazily up at the sun. Their arms were touching.

"Yeah," he said again, and slid his eyes surreptitiously over Aang's lax form. "What are you doing?"

"Checking up on you," and he seemed a little less tired now, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck twice before turning to look up at Zuko. "We woke up and you were gone and – well, me and Katara and Toph, Sokka's still sleeping, but anyway. You know." He grimanced. "Mostly Katara, actually."

Zuko believed it, too. Something not unlike anger coursed through him, and he almost flung the whole bucket of fish back into the water. He took a deep breath instead, though, and let it fall away like dead leaves. "I'm getting breakfast for us," he tried, and looked at Aang again peripherally.

"Good," he said. "Sokka likes to eat."

"Um," and the Former Prince Zuko stood up, brushing off his pants and rolling the legs back down. "I know you don't eat fish, so. If there's anything you want..."

Aang followed on a soft breath of air, and that same gust wove itself around the wet hems of cloth at Zuko's ankles and dried them. "Thank you," he said, and his smile was huge. "You don't have to worry about feeding me, but... I appreciate it."

Zuko nodded, and he wondered what they were even talking about; his mind did not feel heavier, or even as though he had gained something; his heart, however, felt like two jewels clinking together, beautiful harmony.

-

"Do you ever wish it would just – stop? I mean, sometimes I feel like I'm old, and it isn't my body that's tired, it's some... _essence_, inside of me, that's just running dry. I can't imagine how it would feel, a thousand years running – and you have the added burden of four elemental energies in your soul. Doesn't it get worn down?"

-

They did not quite complain about the fish, and Sokka ate it readily enough; but all Zuko got for it was a chilly silence, instead of the usual open hostility.

He wasn't sure if it was an improvement or not, and spent the day wrestling verbally with people who would not speak to him over whose turn it was to train Aang. Katara was notorious for sneaking over to him during their breaks and "showing" him a particular waterbending nuance that ended up taking half an hour.

Even Sokka had taken to pulling the airbender aside and attempting to educate him with battle tactic theory, and it was all Zuko could to do keep from – literally – exploding into a raging inferno. Preferably in the immediate vicinity of the sources of his agitation.

He didn't have any kind of anger problem now, not really – but a man could only take so much provocation.

It was a small consolation, though, that Toph never made a nuisance of herself – and let it be known that she did not approve of anything compromising Aang's learning

"Sorry about that," Aang said sheepishly as he resumed one of the more traditional fire stances. "I just – they really don't like you, you know?" He laughed it off, but Zuko didn't.

"I know," he said, a littler sharper than he meant to. "Come on, show me the Phoenix Eye again."

"Zuko – "

"What?"

Aang pursed his lips and dropped his stance. "Do you want to take a break?"

"You've just had a hour! Do you want to learn how to bend fire or not?"

"No, I mean. The two of us. I want to get you away from the others for a little while."

"Oh," and Zuko's hackles lowered marginally. "I'm sorry, Aang, I..."

"Hey," Aang grinned, grabbing his arm like he did back in the old temple – like they had been friends for years instead of days - "That's the first time you've said my name without hesitating. Usually you're pretty weird about it, you know?"

Zuko's face went red, but Aang smiled like a jackal and pulled him outside. He didn't let go until they were halfway up the jagged rock wall.

-

Later that night, he heard Aang arguing with Katara. He knew Aang's feelings – or, at least had a vague idea about it – and he hated to think he was the reason they were fighting. Sure, there was a part of him that was a little vindictive, but overall he did desire some kind of harmony within the group.

"Katara, would you _listen_ to yourself? Aang _needs_ to learn firebending, and regardless of what's past between you guys, Zuko knows what he's doing! You're letting things that don't matter get in the way of what's important." Toph's voice was clear and sharp, and she spared the lash not at all. "You're making things harder for everyone."

"The fire nation_killed our mother_," Katara bit out, and there was a heavy, undulating rage curling around every word. "He – "

"Didn't," and that time it was Aang's voice. "He didn't do anything, Katara. He was doing what he thought was right, and he's changed now. He isn't trying to capture me anymore; if he was, there were plenty of opportunities to do that and he's missed them. I mean, we went to those booby-trapped fire temples together, and – "

"_Booby_-trapped? Aang, he could have - "

"Katara, please." Aang sounded tired. "I know what I'm doing."

Sokka spoke up then, matter-of-fact, but there was an edge to his voice. "I know you believe in the 'innate goodness' of others, and redemption and all that jazz, but that jerk – "

"Sokka, I'm the_Avatar_." Aang was nearly shouting, and though Zuko couldn't see any of their faces, he could imagine what the airbender looked like. "I know you guys think I'm young, and inexperienced, and I know Katara likes to mother me like I'm a kid, and not the guy that kissed her three weeks ago, and I know you look at me like I'm your little brother who needs looking out for, but how many times have I_saved_ the two of you? And the world, even if it wasn't in this lifetime?"

There was a hard silence and it stretched on; Toph snickered, and after that there footsteps storming out in – if he listened carefully – two different directions.

"I shouldn't have said that," Aang lamented, but there was a good deal of frustration alongside the regret. "But she just – she never talks about it. It's what, the third time I've tried to tell her that I'm in love with her, and she just... writes it off, like this is some crush, and..."

There was a sigh from Toph and she drug her feet on her way out of the hall. "Sorry, Twinkletoes, but I'd say that's answer enough." Her voice receded slightly, like she had been walking and stopped. "Not to be mean or anything, but you've gotta get over this. There are more important things, and Katara..." She stopped, and there was silence until Aang sighed and her footsteps carried her out of the room.

Zuko listened for a long time, wondering why Aang was sitting alone in the dark; but then he realized that he'd probably made his exit through more ethereal means, silent ascension, like a spirit too light to touch the cold stone floor.

The knock at his door, unheralded by any sound of earthly approach, allowed that his assumption was correct.

-

"Do you think the rest of us are reincarnated?"

-

"I don't even know anymore," Aang said, throwing himself back on Zuko's bed and putting his hands behind his neck. "I did at one point – I know I did, there was this Guru and I couldn't even let go of her to go in the Avatar state – "

"When your arrows and eyes glow?"

"Yeah," he said. "I mean, I can now because when you – " He did not say 'betrayed', because he hadn't been there in the underground prison, when it had been Katara looking for something in Zuko to heal. " – and Azula were attacking us, and the Dai Lee – well, I had to. And then that whole almost-dying thing. She brought me back to life. But lately she's just been so... so _ugly_, and I hate it. She's really horrible to you, though."

Zuko stood uncomfortably in the middle of his small room, and said after awhile, "I think you should forgive her." There was a slick, black feeling uncurling in his gut, and when his eyes connected the idea of Aang with the idea of his bed, it grew teeth and he almost put his face in his hands and threw in the towel. Instead, he said, "You've been through a lot. She just doesn't like me, and she's entitled to that."

Aang leaned up on his elbows, and for a wild moment Zuko saw his old obsession overlaid with his disinterest in women, and about the time he realized with distressing certainty his sexual preference, and that Aang needed to get out of his room immediately, the airbender was already asking to spend the night. Withhim.

"If I go back to my room, Katara'll just come in and have one of her 'talks' with me." Aang wrinkled his nose. "She'll say something like, 'Aang, I know we were angry at each other, but I really do care about you and I only want you to be safe. I'm sorry I lost my head.' She won't even mention the kiss, or give a thought to how I felt about her. She just..." He trailed off, and shook his head. "Anyway, can I sleep here tonight? I'm sure she's prowling around my room, waiting for me to get back."

"You shouldn't keep her waiting," Zuko said with as much finality as he could, and ignoring the blatant use of past tense – _felt_, Aang had said. "So, you should leave. Now."

There was a sudden hurt in the Avatar's eyes as he turned away, and it was so unbearable that Zuko's hand shot out – decidedly against his better judgment – and cupped Aang's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I'm just dealing with something right now, and – "

Aang whirled immediately. "You should talk to me about it. It's good for you, instead of bottling it up, and I think it'd be therapeutic for the both of us because I'd really like to not run into Katara and you – " he was chattering so fast as he plopped back down on the bed that Zuko couldn't get a word in edgewise until he shouted.

"Please! It's not something I can talk to you about, but you need to leave, A-Aang," He hoped this was sufficient, but Aang's eyes slowly narrowed on him. "As a responsible adult, you do things even if you don't like them. Like talking to Katara, or sleeping in your own bed – room." _Room, _room!

"If it's about stuff like sex or whatever, I'm not a – a little kid." He was blushing, though, and Zuko was floored. "And anyway you can talk about that, too. Is it Katara?" There was something like rivalry, but mostly it was dejection. "I mean, I know she's pretty, but she's so mean to you..."

"What? No!" He dug his hands back through his hair. "Aang, I don't even _like_ – her." _Careful_, he thought, because he very nearly said 'girls'.

"Then what – "

"Please, you really need to leave now." He was facing away from him, for a reason that would be terribly obvious _terribly soon_, and the airbender was now quite comfortably arranged on his bed.

"Zuko, you really should talk about these things." He moved a little closer, legs slung over the edge of the bed, hands on either side as he pushed forward expectantly. "It's stressful and unhealthy to – "

After, it wasn't clear how long it took to cross the floor, or exactly how he ended up pushing the Avatar onto his back and straddling him, let alone how he was able to actually _kiss_ the kid before eating his own breath – but he did, and he did, and he was.

It wasn't until Aang pushed his tongue into his mouth that Zuko realized there were strong hands digging into his shoulders, slim hips angling against his obvious erection, and that, overall, whatever this was, it was_mutual_. He shoved off and stumbled back from the bed.

"What – I – you – fuck." He breathed, wiping his mouth.

"I was wondering how long it was going to take you," Aang said irritably, and by way of explanation: "Because I've been thinking a lot, too."

"That doesn't," he tried, and then tried again. "This morning – " He couldn't his words out passed his lips. "Why did you," and when Aang shakes his head good-naturedly, he gives up with a wobbly, "Shirtless..." and sits down.

"Organize yourself." He smiled easily. "Topic: reincarnation. You can ask me three questions. And then I'll answer yours, if you haven't figured it out by then." His smile ran from his eyes a bit, but stayed fixed on his mouth. It lingered for only an instant, and fell from there as well.

"Okay," Zuko said, and took a deep breath.

-

"When we die, you'll come back because you have to, but I won't – not _me_. So we won't be together next time around?"

-

It was dark, after midnight but before dawn and Zuko's heart thundered painfully in his throat. Thoughts slipped through his mind like water though rocks, and things like _this was my only shot_, and _there is nothing after this_ and _I don't have time_ because one life couldn't possibly be enough for redemption. Aang shifted in his arms, and Zuko didn't need the flutter of lashes against his shoulder to know he was awake.

"We're mourning something we aren't going to remember," Zuko said finally against the blue line of arrow at the crown of Aang's skull. "And we're young. We have time," but he could taste the lie because they were in the middle of a war, they were children, and they were playing at fighting and falling in love both.

"Everything I do, I do for my friends. I do for _people_. But I'm the only one who comes back. Everyone else, it's just fragments of them – if you die, Zuko, I really will never see you again. Katara, and Sokka, and Toph – and you." Zuko couldn't see his face, but he could feel the hot wetness trickling along his clavicle. Aang's breath did not catch, though, nor did he sob. His voice was steady as a drum.

An impossible weight settled itself over Zuko's chest and he realized in a horrible moment of empathy how lonely all predestined heroes must be.

"Will you remember?"

"Some part of me will. When I'm guiding the next incarnation of myself along, I think – I'll remember you."

His arms tightened around Aang's young, narrow shoulders, and he wondered at the act of gifting a single person with this terrible burden; at giving life over and over, to protect people who only live once.

It would be morning, and with it another set of problems would return to them from the spectres they had faded to in the night; so before dawn could bother to rouse herself, Zuko kissed Aang one more time, two, ten – slowly, and carefully, he made it absolutely clear that regardless of what would come – who would live, who would die, who would come back alone – he was here now, they _both_ were, and even if they would not meet after this lifetime –

Well, there would time to deal with that later.


End file.
